There would be four more Union government nominees on the MMRC board, other than the chairman.

After a hiatus of nearly five months, the stalled tendering process for the Rs 23,126-crore Colaba-Bandra-Seepz Metro will be back on track next week with the first board meeting of the reconstituted Mumbai Metro Rail Corp (MMRC) scheduled for August 12.

The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), which was until now the parent body of the MMRC, had put the tendering process on hold for the Colaba-Bandra-Seepz Metro, awaiting the reconstitution of the Metro Corp and the new board taking over. The development authority had also deferred a decision on the pre-qualification bids it had received for the project in March, preferring the proposals to be assessed by the new board of the reconstituted MMRC.

U P S Madan, metropolitan commissioner of the MMRDA, said, “With the state government having approved the reconstitution of the MMRC, we have scheduled the first meeting on August 12. We definitely intend to put forth information about the pre-qualification bids and the tendering process for the Colaba-Bandra-Seepz Metro to the board in the first meeting itself.”

The meeting is crucial for the MMRC to scrutinise the bidders for their eligibility and prepare a shortlist of consortia from whom financial bids would be invited to eventually start the construction of the 33.5-km Metro line. The Colaba-Bandra-Seepz Metro would be one of the country’s longest underground Metro corridors. The development authority had received pre-qualification proposals from 14 firms in joint ventures in early March.

“Besides, the board meeting is also to formally deem the company as being reconstituted. The secretary of the Ministry of Urban Development would be the MMRC’s chairman,” Madan said. The board will comprise five state government directors, namely, the MMRDA commissioner, the additional commissioner of the MMRDA, the municipal commissioner, principal secretary of the state urban development and a technical expert who is yet to be appointed, he added.

Besides, there would be four more Union government nominees on the MMRC board, other than the chairman.

The Union government had directed the Maharashtra government to reconstitute the MMRC as a 50:50 joint venture to implement the Colaba-Banrda-Seepz Metro project under the Central Metro Act, with part funding from the Union government. Earlier, the MMRC was a wholly-owned company of the state government. However, the process of reconstitution was delayed as the chief minister-led urban development department was sitting on the file for more than nine months. The CM eventually cleared the proposal late last month.